Ariana Baio
INDEPENDENT UK
Fri, January 31, 2025
Fri, January 31, 2025
Elon Musk continues to assert his power and influence with President Donald Trump, and a new report details how the tech mogul and his allies have taken “control” of the Office of Personnel Management and skipped past key officials to release an email asking federal workers to resign.
More than 2.3 million government employees were sent an email last week offering buyouts to anyone who voluntarily leaves their job in an effort to significantly reduce the federal workforce.
The style of the email, entitled “Fork in the Road,” mimics that of one Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022 when he bought the company, now known as X.
Officials within the Office of Personnel Management - an HR-type agency for the government - were reportedly “blindsided” by the memo, believed to be heavily influenced by billionaire Musk.
The Office of Personnel Management is a nonpartisan agency that manages the federal workforce, and would typically be consulted ahead of significant personnel changes. They were not informed of this proposal, people familiar with the situation told The Washington Post.
In the weeks since Trump took office, Musk has moved to take control of the office, according to the Post. He visited the office on Friday and put several of his longtime allies in key positions.
Elon Musk has installed several allies in the Office of Personnel Management as he seeks to slash the federal workforce - and Trump pushed for federal workers to resign (via REUTERS)
That includes Anthony Armstrong, who helped Musk buy Twitter, according to the Post. Others include Brian Bjelde from SpaceX and Amanda Scales who worked at a Musk AI firm. The trio are now in leadership positions in the office.
Musk’s team also built the system that sent the email to federal workers - a system that did not exist before Trump took office, the Post noted.
It is the latest signal that Musk’s role in Trump’s new administration reaches far beyond his position leading the Department of Government Efficiency.
DOGE was initially pitched as an advisory committee to function outside of the government and suggest spending cutbacks but through an executive order. Trump replaced the U.S. Digital Service office with DOGE. Musk was also supposed to co-chair that with Vivek Ramaswamy, but now has sole control.
Musk’s role in upending the federal workforce and reshaping it to fall more in line with Trump’s agenda has transformed his advisory role into something much larger.
In turn, some federal employees are skeptical of the buyout offer.
Musk has encountered legal issues with many former employees. A former Tesla executive is suing Musk after the company allowed him to work remotely but then threatened to fire him if he did not relocate
Thousands of former Twitter employees unsuccessfully sued Musk claiming he did not pay at least $500 million in severance after he conducted a mass layoff at the company.
The Office of Personnel Management offer claims to pay workers' salaries through September 30 and says they do not have to return to work. However, questions remain on whether the offer will hold up to scrutiny.
The Independent has asked the Office of Personnel Management for comment.
Elon Musk Shuts Out Senior Government Workers in Latest DOGE Takeover
Emell Derra Adolphus
Fri, January 31, 2025
CHIP SOMODEVILLA / POOL/AFP via Getty Images
DOGE director Elon Musk has shut out senior government workers and seized control of key workflows in the Office of Personnel Management, causing major security concerns, a source told Reuters.
The Office of Personnel Management functions as the government’s human resources agency, managing policies, payments, recruitment, and labor relations.
Government aides working for the billionaire Tesla CEO and Trump sidekick have reportedly taken over the office’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration database, which contains the personal data of millions of federal employees, two agency officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal.
“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”
Musk has suggested that he could cut “at least $2 trillion” from U.S. government spending by eliminating “waste” and redundancy. President Donald Trump has also pledged to shrink the government, offering buyouts to all federal employees who opt to leave their jobs by Feb. 6.
The merits of such an offering have been called into question by legal experts. As one attorney told NPR, the offer is “not based on any law or regulation or anything really other than an idea they cooked up to get federal employees out of the government.”
But that hasn’t stopped Trump administration officials from moving to freeze out employees, with some Office of Personnel Management workers fearing Musk is aiming to replace them with Trump loyalists.
Emell Derra Adolphus
Fri, January 31, 2025
CHIP SOMODEVILLA / POOL/AFP via Getty Images
DOGE director Elon Musk has shut out senior government workers and seized control of key workflows in the Office of Personnel Management, causing major security concerns, a source told Reuters.
The Office of Personnel Management functions as the government’s human resources agency, managing policies, payments, recruitment, and labor relations.
Government aides working for the billionaire Tesla CEO and Trump sidekick have reportedly taken over the office’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration database, which contains the personal data of millions of federal employees, two agency officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal.
“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”
Musk has suggested that he could cut “at least $2 trillion” from U.S. government spending by eliminating “waste” and redundancy. President Donald Trump has also pledged to shrink the government, offering buyouts to all federal employees who opt to leave their jobs by Feb. 6.
The merits of such an offering have been called into question by legal experts. As one attorney told NPR, the offer is “not based on any law or regulation or anything really other than an idea they cooked up to get federal employees out of the government.”
But that hasn’t stopped Trump administration officials from moving to freeze out employees, with some Office of Personnel Management workers fearing Musk is aiming to replace them with Trump loyalists.
Trump Broke the Federal Email System and Government Employees Got Blasted With Astonishingly Vulgar Messages
Joe Wilkins
Fri, January 31, 2025
Email Empowerment
Turns out that putting underqualified kids in charge of the federal government's HR agency wasn't the smartest move. Last night, an exploit in the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) new home-cooked email server seems to have made it possible for anyone with an email address to blast messages to vast numbers of federal employees.
As a result, over 13,000 employees with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found their inboxes bombarded with spam and messages from vulgar trolls. Some users signed the NOAA up for newsletters from entities like the Church of Scientology, or the Perfect Jean — "Welcome to Jean Perfection," a screenshot reads. One particularly vulgar email offered pointers on Trump's alleged performance at a sexual act. An "Important Weather Alert" warned that the next four years have a 99 percent chance of fecal showers. "Aren't you tired of working for a complete c***?" asked one sender. A missive from a sender identified as "Craig" simply reads "yo."
Ken Klippenstein, the national security reporter who revealed the breach, once again took the opportunity to plug his infamous newsletter with the subject line: "urgent, time sensitive."
If you feel this paints a pretty grim picture of the state of our government agencies, you're not alone. "Goes to show you how fast this [new comms system] was cobbled together," one NOAA employee told Ken Klippenstein. "No security or screening on this address."
Spam of God
The whole thing apparently stems from an overhaul at the OPM led by oligarch-in-chief Elon Musk. On Tuesday, Wired reported that Musk had been given free reign to replace the agency's high-level staff with lackeys from his previous ventures.
Those included a 21-year-old who had previously worked for Peter Thiel, and a summer intern from Neuralink who just graduated high school. It also included Amanda Scales — a former xAI HR staffer who is reportedly in place as the OPM's new chief of staff.
Scales is allegedly implementing what some have called a hostile takeover of the OPM, axing the Chief Information Officer Melvin Brown II for refusing to implement the new regime's in-house email server. Brown evidently made the right call, as the new system — on top of all the aforementioned drama — was immediately hit with a class-action lawsuit for failing to pass Bush-era cyber security checks.
All this server drama is important, as it's reportedly key in DOGE's goal of gathering information on every government employee. Tuesday's much-reported "fork in the road" email memos came from this unsecured server, which unintentionally revealed the involvement of two non-government individuals, both heavily involved in Project 2025.
As Trump's acolytes look to gut the federal government and install their own yes men, the drama swirling around this email server will have a lot to reveal about the new administration's unprecedented strategy.
More on email leaks: In Leaked Email, Elon Musk Admits Defeat on Twitter
Opinion
Trump Change Causes Flood of Crude Spam Emails to Federal Workers
Malcolm Ferguson
Fri, January 31, 2025
THE NEW REPUBLIC
The Trump administration’s changes to its email settings has federal employees getting endlessly spammed with vulgar content.
When Trump took office, he changed the email system so that every single federal worker could be contacted with one email. People are taking advantage of that. According to online reports, all 13,000 employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, were flooded with spam emails on Thursday.
“I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks. From a Scientology confirmation email to an Important Weather Alert that the next 4 years has a 99% chance of shit showers,” one federal worker wrote on the r/fednews subreddit. “I guess this is what happens when you plug in an unsecured server.”
“Aren’t you tired of working for a complete cunt?” one of the NOAA emails read. “TRUMP TRIED TO SUCK MY COCK,” said another. The email with the subject “Important Weather Alert” read, “The next 4 years has a 99% chance of shit showers. Our president is a retard and his VP is a f—. We’re cooked. Please reply.”
Not everyone is using this basic lack of security oversight for crassness.
“I just sent this email to all 13,000 federal employees of the NOAA lol,” said journalist Ken Klippenstein, sharing an email asking federal workers to subscribe to his newsletter. “The Trump administration’s changes to their communications system made it so literally anyone can blast messages out to the entire agency.”
Trump has yet to comment on the spam emails.
OPM sued over privacy concerns with new government-wide email system
Rebecca Beitsch
Rebecca Beitsch
THE HILL
Tue, January 28, 2025
Two federal employees are suing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to block the agency from creating a new email distribution system — an action that comes as the information will reportedly be directed to a former staffer to Elon Musk now at the agency.
The suit, launched by two anonymous federal employees, ties together two events that have alarmed members of the federal workforce and prompted privacy concerns.
That includes an unusual email from OPM last Thursday reviewed by The Hill said the agency was testing “a new capability” to reach all federal employees — a departure from staffers typically being contacted directly by their agency’s human resources department.
Also cited in the suit is an anonymous Reddit post Monday from someone purporting to be an OPM employee, saying a new server was installed at their office after a career employee refused to set up a direct line of communication to all federal employees.
According to the post, instructions have been given to share responses to the email to OPM chief of staff Amanda Scales, a former employee at Musk’s AI company.
Federal agencies have separately been directed to send Scales a list of all employees still on their one-year probationary status, and therefore easier to remove from government.
The suit says the actions violate the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires a Privacy Impact Assessment before pushing ahead with creation of databases that store personally identifiable information.
Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a non-profit law firm, noted that OPM has been hacked before and has a duty to protect employees’ information.
“Because they did that without any indications to the public of how this thing was being managed — they can’t do that for security reasons. They can’t do that because they have not given anybody any reason to believe that this server is secure….that this server is storing this information in the proper format that would prevent it from being hacked,” he said.
OPM declined to comment on the lawsuit.
McClanahan noted that the emails appear to be an effort to create a master list of federal government employees, as “System of Records Notices” are typically managed by each department.
“I think part of the reason — and this is just my own speculation — that they’re doing this is to try and create that database. And they’re trying to sort of create it by smushing together all these other databases and telling everyone who receives the email to respond,” he said.
A Friday email from OPM instructed employees to respond “yes” to test messages to confirm they can be reached by the agency.
The involvement of Scales comes as Musk, her former employer, has been tapped to lead the Department on Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory group focused on slashing the size of the federal workforce and budget.
DOGE as well as OPM have been tapped to form “a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition” — a move detailed in an order from Trump to institute a federal hiring freeze.
Tue, January 28, 2025
Two federal employees are suing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to block the agency from creating a new email distribution system — an action that comes as the information will reportedly be directed to a former staffer to Elon Musk now at the agency.
The suit, launched by two anonymous federal employees, ties together two events that have alarmed members of the federal workforce and prompted privacy concerns.
That includes an unusual email from OPM last Thursday reviewed by The Hill said the agency was testing “a new capability” to reach all federal employees — a departure from staffers typically being contacted directly by their agency’s human resources department.
Also cited in the suit is an anonymous Reddit post Monday from someone purporting to be an OPM employee, saying a new server was installed at their office after a career employee refused to set up a direct line of communication to all federal employees.
According to the post, instructions have been given to share responses to the email to OPM chief of staff Amanda Scales, a former employee at Musk’s AI company.
Federal agencies have separately been directed to send Scales a list of all employees still on their one-year probationary status, and therefore easier to remove from government.
The suit says the actions violate the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires a Privacy Impact Assessment before pushing ahead with creation of databases that store personally identifiable information.
Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a non-profit law firm, noted that OPM has been hacked before and has a duty to protect employees’ information.
“Because they did that without any indications to the public of how this thing was being managed — they can’t do that for security reasons. They can’t do that because they have not given anybody any reason to believe that this server is secure….that this server is storing this information in the proper format that would prevent it from being hacked,” he said.
OPM declined to comment on the lawsuit.
McClanahan noted that the emails appear to be an effort to create a master list of federal government employees, as “System of Records Notices” are typically managed by each department.
“I think part of the reason — and this is just my own speculation — that they’re doing this is to try and create that database. And they’re trying to sort of create it by smushing together all these other databases and telling everyone who receives the email to respond,” he said.
A Friday email from OPM instructed employees to respond “yes” to test messages to confirm they can be reached by the agency.
The involvement of Scales comes as Musk, her former employer, has been tapped to lead the Department on Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory group focused on slashing the size of the federal workforce and budget.
DOGE as well as OPM have been tapped to form “a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition” — a move detailed in an order from Trump to institute a federal hiring freeze.
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